Will Maclean: Points of Departure II

About

Maclean’s work remains intrinsically anchored in the history, the archaeology and the literature of the Scottish Highlands and the Highland people, including members of his own family. The exquisite, poetic nature of his box constructions, sculptures and drawings, often alludes to Surrealist orthodoxies of assemblage, especially of flotsam and jetsam found on beaches and transformed in the ordered context of his ship-shape studio. They also focus on wide-ranging themes relating to the sea like exploration, navigation, the Clearances and emigration, whaling et al. Maclean’s narratives are at once personal and universal.  On occasion the deeply considered memorials he creates stand for those individuals and communities who might otherwise never have them. His art eloquently brings the past into an immediately felt present, igniting fresh interest and renewed, dynamic connections for viewers of every generation in numerous countries around the world.

Maclean respects legacy; he delves into history and the stories, songs and poetry of those who brought him and us with him, into our contemporary culture. The wit, the ‘symbols of survival’, the occasional tragedy referenced in his subject matter, are delivered with a honed brevity and a reflective, tactile beauty that is always a tribute to the real. Like a good poem, ‘often it cut[s] straight to the bone’, as R F Foster wrote recently of Seamus Heaney’s poetry.  Maclean and Heaney were both participants of The Great Book of Gaelic/An Leabhar Mor, 2002, a collaboration between Irish and Scottish poets and artists which became a world touring exhibition.

Maclean is internationally recognised as a foremost exponent of box construction art. Using found objects which he deconstructs and reconstructs in a display of visual thinking that is compelling, he has developed a unique visual and poetic language. Reductive and honed, his metaphorical art is based on the histories and mythologies of those who live and work by the sea. His deep interest in Highland culture reaches out to universal themes of navigation, emigration, whaling and fishing, and global exploration. There is always strong narrative contained in these fascinating works, though immediate interpretations can be elusive.

His work is in public collections including Arts Council of Great Britain; The British Museum; Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow City Art Galleries; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Scottish Arts Council; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; McMaster Museum, Canada; Yale Centre for British Art, Newhaven, USA.